Tips for Men cuts Part 1.

Well its time to get more active on this blog.

I have only just discovered Vivian’s blog...which is fantastic! Not to mention all the other great kendo blogs out there. We will be putting up links to them all very soon.

A lot of people have commented on my men in the past. So i thought it might be useful to post up a few training tips for men, i.e. the things i did when I first started.

The best way to improve your men cut is to practice Kihon men at home (if you have space). Pretend you are striking your opponent from a distance. Meaning you need to take a step in 1st, then cut men. Just to break it down, 1st slide your right foot forward then bring your left leg up and then immediately launch off for a kihon men cut as soon as you bring your left foot up. Move your feet as quickly as possible (start off slow if you are a beginner) to get your body moving as fast as it can. The key to a good men cut is getting the body moving. If none of this makes sense please grab me at training to explain further.

The following are a few details to muse over when practising this men cut from distance at home.

Body movement: A great men cut comes from tremendously strong body momentum. If you can get your 'whole' body moving from 0 to 100km (figuratively speaking!) in a split second you are half way there. However you need to train your body to do this. You want to feel like your body is part of the cut...not just your hands and Shinai.

Posture: You need to keep your body upright and straight throughout the entire men cut. This ensures your hips are travelling as fast as everything else, which translates into your whole body is moving forward, meaning you have a lot of power behind your cut and you will be more stable 'in flight'

Smooth Action: Make sure your men cut is smooth. This means raising and lowering your shinai at the same speed. A lot of people raise their shinai slower then they cut. You need to lift and lower your shinai in one sweeping quick movement.

Keep Kamae: When moving forward, keep your kamae for as long as possible to the point where you think 'If I don't cut now I’m going fumikomi without cutting men'. Doing this will make your men cut scarier and force your arms to move faster.

I'll be posting a few more tips on men cuts...stay tuned...

Also if anyone has tips on building a great Kote cut, I would love to hear them!

How jayson got started and why he is still 1st kyu after 9 years

I started playing kendo when I was just 16 years old at the University of Newcastle. There I met Don Miller (later I was told he was a renegade kendoka...but that is a story for someone else to tell) the sensei of the club.

We had the most magnificent dojo, Don had some friends at the university and had this dojo/dance hall especially built in conjunction with the multi million dollar sports and aquatic centre being built at the time for the university...we had wall to wall mirrors, springy smooth wooden floor boards and proper Japanese bogu room.

Sadly Don Miller left to Japan to teach English permanently when I was 17 and the club fell apart after only 6 months as the older students finished their degrees and moved on to find jobs. As the numbers dropped from about 25 reguler attendees to 5 or less, we got moved out of our fantastic purpose built dojo to the squash courts. I temporarily quit.

About 18 months later (now 18-19 years) returning to university as a 'proper' student, i noticed some kendo flyers on the uni notice board. So I went along to the new training session and Naohiki Shimada a third Dan uni student from Japan. He was a fantastically strong player with the best Men cut i have ever seen till this day. I wish he could have played with Okazaki or Kirby. I trained with Naohiki for about 24 months before he finished his business course and left back to Japan. Another sad loss for the Newcastle club.

I then played Kendo on and off for the next two years at the struggling University of Newcastle kendo club (many very un-important things happened during this time which are not worth mentioning here) and I was still grade less. I finished uni at 23 and made the move to Sydney to find a job.

When I came to Sydney...i was excited about finding a Kendo club to join. I was originally going to join the Macquarie University Club...but found the Sydney Kendo Club website more appealing. I called Doug and he gave me the training times. I don't really remember my first training at Willoughby (I have a bad memory), but I do remember Doug telling me that I played pretty good for someone who had never graded. It soon became apparent to me that grading is important.

So all in all...I have been exposed to kendo much longer than my grade suggests...however it has not all been quality time. I do thank Don Miller for teaching me the fundamentals of kendo and I thank Naohiki Shimada for teaching me how to cut men. However I can honestly say my greatest progression has been at the Sydney Kendo Club under the guidance of Payne sensei and Itakura sensei.

On this note I would just like to remind everyone to keep playing Kendo, don't give up (its much harder to get back into than you think) and make sure the training you do during the week counts.

Read it and weep!

Is the world conspiring against me? Or simply against me playing kendo?

Work situation reduced my playing time down from 3 nights to 1 and now a recent visit to the physio has dropped me to ZERO!!!!! At least for the next few weeks....

It all began back at the Founders Cup. I never noticed it over that weekend but over the following few weeks my right shoulder was sore, especially after playing. Like most of these things (and being a male) I assumed that it would go away and almost convinced myself that it had and then one morning I was being a silly bugger on my skateboard, slammed hard on the concrete on my shoulder, and the pain was back again. I gave it yet another week to improve but no luck. Finally, I missed my one night of training on monday as the shoulder was feeling pretty bad and I saw a sports physio on wednesday (thanks Vivian). The result?

I have a 'shoulder impingement'. The assumption is that I did some tendon damage (probably from having to play keikari-geiko with Jackson for my grading!) and this lead to swelling in the joint. So when I raise my arm the swelling pushes the bone out of its socket. What now?

At least a couple of weeks of no kendo, exercises, anti-inflammatory drugs, more visits to the physio and about a 6 to 8 week recovery. Bugger huh?

The lesson here? Act on an injury early to avoid a worse case scenario later, and count yourself lucky every time you have an opportunity to train. Do your stretching properly and think of poor clowns like me who will be looking at their watch at training times and thinking about you all training while I'm stuck at work or staring at the idiot box day dreaming of pulling my men on and facing off for some jigeiko with my friends. I hope it will happen one day soon.

Make the most of it,

Rick

The Russian Style has made its mark!

Monday night I finally got to play the infamous Russians. Well, to be honest, I got to play the same one twice but both jigeiko were excellent experiences and I learnt a lot from them. At the same time though, I became aware that it was just a fraction of what we could potentially learn with a steady flow of visitors like this.

Over the past few days I have also been thinking about what their training routines might be and if there is something in particular that we could take from their training practices. If anyone gets the chance to ask I would be greatly interested to know.

They are so fast and yet 'delicate' in the way they cut and move. I see some similarities with the korean style but also similarities to people like Yoshi-san. They have such an interesting style of their own. Do we have a style of our own? An SKC style? I don't know...I don't think so but I might be wrong. What do you think?

Life, Kendo and Omnipotence...

I started writing this just after the Founders Cup, saved it as a draft, erased it, and am now writing something completely different! That's life....

So what's in a title? Well, first of all, I said 'omnipotence' not 'impotence'! Althoug I guess I could say that I'm feeling a little impotent that I'm not omnipotent. Why? Because my life has had a bit of a turn-around in the past few weeks and it would really help if I could be omnipotent - everywhere at once!

I've now missed two weeks of kendo for a string of reasons. The first week I missed monday night because of work (finishing up a one year contract), wednesday night because a friend got us free tickets to the Australia v. Kuwait soccer match, saturday morning because one of my closest friends called from the USA just as I was leaving home. I turned up at the end of training for the AGM and came home with Andrew Tan's flu (don't worry, I'm not blaming you Andrew!) that has kept me out of training this past week. I've now changed jobs and my current hours will be wednesday and friday nights followed by saturday and sunday days!

Hence, the title. Sometimes when life meets kendo the only solution is to be in two places at once. If only! Hopefully, I'll be able to change my work times to get at least one of the SKC training days in, but it might take a few weeks. This dilemma has really made me appreciate the simple joy in being able to train at all. We can get hung up on what's happening at training and our desire for the 'perfect' training session and forget to relish the fact that we can train with some great friends and sincere sensei who want to see us do our best.

I am so looking forward to my next opportunity to train with everyone and it will take more than a volley of 'men' cuts to wipe the smile off my face.

Enjoy your training,

Rick